Toddlers and 2-Year Old Programming
"I'm just a kid, I have a lot of stuff to do yet."
~ Clint Eastwood
Our commitment to quality care continues in our Toddler and 2-year old rooms. Children at this age are eager learners who energetically interact with materials and people. We at the center realize that an environment and curriculum that encourages each child's growing need of independence is a basis for developing and mastering life skills and a positive self esteem. By playing in both large and small groups, these children will learn valuable social skills needed to effectively interact with others. While engaging in fun activities toddlers and 2-year olds will discover their likes and talents and will be exposed to fundamentals such as: colors, shapes, self-help skills, as well as social and language development.
Children under the age of 2 years old will have a notebook system for direct communication with their teacher(s). In this notebook the teacher will log the daily activities, feedings and the rest times of your child. Parents will be asked to list pertinent information that will ensure the individualized schedule of each child is up-to-date, to inculde but not limited to: the last time your child ate, slept and was changed, as well as mood and sleeping patterns of the night before. Parents of 2-year olds will find daily information posted in the Parent Area of the room.
Arts for Kids has an individualized program for the needs of children ages of
6-weeks to 2-years old.
All children will have individual contact and attention through feeding, diapering and learning experience.
Each child will follow their individual routine of feeding and sleeping set by their home environment.
The children will be provided with equipment to fit their educational development and creative expression appopriate to their age level.
Daily communication with parents:
~ A notebook for each child under two years of age will be sent home with parents summarizing child's activities.
Parents will bring back notebook with information for teachers.
Staff will ensure that throughout the day infants will be moved into different activities.
Potty Training Policy
If parents and the center are in agreement that a child is developmentally ready, Arts for Kids will begin to encourage potty training at age 2.
At 2-1/2 years old age, regular potty training is part of our daily program and routine. Children will be encouraged to wear pull-ups or underwear (depending on progress) and have plenty of extra pull-ups or underwear on hand. They will be taken to the bathroom every 2 hours (possibly more often at the beginning). If a child is wearing underwear, they will be put in a pull-up or diaper for naps, unless completely trained. We will use lots of praise for a "job well done" and lots of understanding when "accidents happen" if a child has a rough day.
Sometimes potty training can happen overnight and sometimes it can be a long process - we just need to have a lot of patience.
March 2021 News!
Toddler I
Super March everyone! Birds chirping, flowers blooming, spring winds!
We have been patiently waiting for warmer weather! We had a pretty good winter (so far).
We were busy this past month decorating our room with hearts and cookies during cookie week!
We painted paper teeth with homemade toothpaste. We used tooth brushes for this activity. Our toothpaste was baking soda, salt and peppermint extract. It was quite the experiment! It smelled really good!
We made a Valentines explosion with baking soda, vinegar, salt and heart candy sprinkles!
I hope your child enjoyed the goop in the sensory baggie!
We enjoyed using a toothbrush and painting laminated teeth with real toothpaste!
We read books “Where is Baby’s Valentine?”, “I Love You, Spot” and “I Spy Valentine Hearts!”
We learned a song during dental week “When I wake up in the morning I brush my teeth ch ch ch ch!”
We would like to welcome Oscar and Audrey to our class!
We hope everyone enjoys the month of March. Hopefully we can get outside on the playground more!
Please keep bringing boots, snow pants, hats, warm jackets and mittens.
Thank you and God Bless you all!
Ms. Karen & Ms. Ashley
Toddler II
Welcome March!
February definitely was not a very inviting month for our little toddlers to get outside. Too, too cold but we did our best at keeping ourselves moving indoors. Hopefully, warmer weather is on its way.
We did enjoy our Valentine party. All our special treats and handing out Valentine’s to our friends.
Music week was a big hit! Your kiddos love dancing and playing different instruments.
This month we will celebrate and talk about some special dates. We have Dr. Seuss’s birthday, St. Patrick’s Day and the first day of spring.
We will also spend a week learning the colors of the rainbow and finish out the month getting ready for Easter.
Enjoy the month!
Ms. Janice & Ms. Tina
Toddler III
Well we made it through frigid February. It can only go up from here, right? Hopefully this month we will have many more chances to get outside and enjoy the snow and our playground.
Last month we had a blast talking about Valentine’s Day. Our party was so much fun! Thanks to all who brought treats and Valentines!
We also had a lot of fun with our weeks of shapes and music.
This month we will talk about favorite authors, colors and rainbows, St. Patrick’s Day, Spring and Easter.
Springtime and Easter are always a lot of fun to plan for with so many fun things to do!
I look forward to another great month with your kiddos!
Marie
2's I
I hope everyone stayed warm over the last few weeks!
Since it was so cold, our class spent some extra time inside. We took warm buggy rides through the mall, walked like different animals through the hallways, and bounced around in the classroom.
We also took lots of extra walks to the art room!
Our Valentine’s party was so much fun—THANK YOU to all the 2’s children and their families for making it happen!
We have a few more celebrations coming up in March—Dr. Seuss’s birthday and St. Patrick’s Day!
The kids can also look forward to beating the winter blues with themes about emotions and weather change.
I’m sure we’ll all be happy when the weather starts warming up!
Miss Alison
2's II
Happy March!
We had a busy month in February. We worked on our fine motor skills, social skills, eye-hand coordination, self help skills, and our letter recognition. The first week of February our theme was snow. The kids learned more about colors while spraying the snow with different colored water.
We got snow flakes and dropped them from on top of our heads and we put letters on the snowflakes and matched them with the same letters on the letter wall. The next week we talked about Valentine’s Day. We had a great party and got to enjoy yummy treats (thank you to the parents that brought food in). The children loved giving to their friends while passing out their Valentines. We had a great heart hunt around the room. For most of February we had to stay inside due to the cold weather but we made the most of it by having bike races, hop races, and pushing the laundry basket in the hallway. For the following week we talked about dental health. We used our fine motor skills to pull string around a paper tooth and pretended to brush our teeth. We learned what makes our teeth happy and what makes our teeth sad. The last week we talked about our emotions/feelings. We got a lot out that week and talked about the way we feel.
I hope everyone has a wonderful month. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.
Ms. Laura
2's III
We had so much fun last month! We learned about winter weather and all the activities we can do in winter (although some we had to pretend to do when it was too cold for us to try outdoors!), Valentine’s Day and developing friendships (thank you for the Valentine’s and treats!), Dental Health month—we practiced brushing our teeth for 2 minutes so that the sugar bugs won’t hurt our teeth, learned about flossing and what foods are good for keeping our teeth strong and healthy, and finally we learned about ourselves as we focused on our emotions and how to communicate what we are feeling in a healthy way.
We are excited to start off the month of March by celebrating Dr. Suess week! Please see front page of this newsletter for fun dress up days!
I hope that you have enjoyed the pictures and videos that I send during the week of the fun activities we do in 2’s III.
If you ever have any questions or concerns about what we are learning or how your child is doing, please feel free to ask!
Have a wonderful month!
Ms. Sara B
